Seven Great Detective Stories

 Seven Great Detective Stories by William H. Larson (ed)

One should be careful when choosing titles for books. For instance, if you're going to say that you've got seven Great detective stories, then you ought to be sure that the majority of readers are going to agree with you that all seven really are great...and really are detective stories. As in, there is actually some detecting going on. Of the seven stories in this collection, I'd agree that three are great (the Wade, Futrelle, and Doyle) and one is almost, but not quite (the Chesterton). And I'd agree that most, but not all, are detective stories. The Cooper story has a detective--but we really don't see him detecting. Here we see him trapping the guilty man, but we don't the gathering of clues. Futrelle's story, while be a great look at how Van Dusen thinks, also isn't really a story about detection. And neither is the Kemelman. In fact, Kemelman's story doesn't really hang together all that well. I'm not buying that the professor could just string together all those "logical" inferences and, hey, presto, actually solve a crime he didn't even know had been committed. 

My favorite story of the bunch (on this reading) is "The Missing Undergraduate." It was the first short story I've read by Wade (although I have enjoyed several of his novel-length mysteries) and I'm always happy to find a good academic mystery. I've read both the Futrelle and Doyle stories so many times over the years that I know them pretty well backwards and forwards. So, they don't make quite the impression they did when I first discovered them. ★★★ for a decent collection.

"Suspect Unknown" by Courtney Ryley Cooper: The FBI Inspector was certain he knew the identity of the man responsible for the Tilliver murder. But there is no hard evidence. How can he get the man to reveal himself as the suspect unknown? (one shot)

"The Blast of the Book" by G. K. Chesterton: Father Brown teaches a scientist interested in the paranormal and psychic phenomena how to distinguish between what is really there and what isn't when a clergyman comes along with a story about a cursed book which makes people disappear.

"The Missing Undergraduate" by Henry Wade: Inspector Poole is called back to Oxford, his alma mater, to look into the disappearance of an undergraduate known for his practical jokes. The solution is a bit macabre--reminding me of an Edgar Allan Poe story or two....

"The Problem of Cell 13" by Jacques Futrelle: Futrelle's most famous story. Professor Van Dusen insists that nothing is impossible to a thinking man. His friends wager that he can't think his way out of a prison cell...but he proceeds to do just that.

"Silver Blaze" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson are off to Dartmoor to investigate the disappearance of a famous race horse and the murder of the horse's trainer. Inspector Gregory & company have been on the case, but have made no headway. Holmes is in the area for a mere afternoon and soon has all the threads in his hand. [one hit on head]

"The Nine-Mile Walk" by Harry Kemelman: Our narrator, a candidate for district attorney, is challenged to provide a sentence of ten words or so to his professorial friend and the professor guarantees that he can come up with a logical chain of inferences that are correct--even if they aren't the true inference the narrator intended. What begins as an pedantic exercise soon turns into the solution of a daring murder on a train. 

"The Man in the Velvet Hat" by Jerome & Harold Prince: Reynolds, a journalist, spurs Inspector Magruder to hunt an apparent serial killer who targets victims from all social classes in deaths that pass as accidental. The culprit is said to be a man in a velvet hat and a brown overcoat. Magruder just wants to be sure he finds the one really responsible.... [one fell from height; one registered as pneumonia; one car accident

First line (1st story): Inspector Jessop of the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been expecting the call.

Last line (last story): "But that was this morning, Reynolds; that was this morning."